Pokemon Champion Can Unlock the Best Part of Pokemon for Everyone

There is an onboarding issue in Pokemon's video game competition scenario.

It has had one since the birth of the 2008 Pokemon Video Game Championship (VGC for short) was born. Now, nearly two decades later, the Pokemon company has the opportunity to turn competitive Pokemon into the most approachable pokemon ever. Thanks to Pokemon Championships, a battle simulator similar to Pokemon Stadium is about to enter Switch and Mobile, players will be able to train and fight Pokemon quickly and efficiently. Not only that, at the Pokemon World Championship last weekend, Pokemon announced that it will be the official way to participate in the 2026 world.

This is very big.

For beginners, getting Pokemon “competition ready” is not like catching a Pokemon. Naturally, factors such as personal values and effort value may affect Pokemon statistics and all factors must be considered during training. Most importantly, abilities and actions can greatly change the use case of Pokemon. Two identical Pokemons may have very different statistics and actions to fill the different roles of the team. For example, with high-speed statistics, intimidation (this ability to reduce the attack of opposing Pokemons) and Thunder Wave can act as a supporter of Pokemon, Thunder Wave weakens tough opponents and slows them down by paralysis. Meanwhile, Moxie has Gyrados with high attack statistics (increasing user attack ability after each elimination), and earthquakes can snowball into serious threats. The problem is that the statistics are not clearly displayed in the game except for the action and ability. Each generation (especially Pokemon Sword, Shield, Scarlet and Violet) minimizes efforts to simplify the process with new items and mechanisms.

And, because of the small additions, competitive games are still daunting. Building a team with scarlet and violet — assuming you have finished the story and have a lot of resources — took a few hours. architecture OK It can take weeks, if not months. As a result, many players turn to avid web-based combat simulator, e.g. Pokemon showdown In order to quickly build and test different teams before investing time and resources to create teams in the game. As someone deeply rooted in a competitive world, it makes sense. That's how it worked over the years, and it looks pretty good as the competitive ability of the Pokemon has become easier over the years. However, it only takes a small part to realize that for the vast majority of Pokemon players, competitive scenarios are still difficult to understand.

Suppose you want to build a team in Pokemon Scarlet. For beginners, to grab one, you need to complete most of the game's DLC and Blueberry Academy's Pokedex. Then you need to spend hours adjusting its stats, which can be adjusted with wear or a lot of Pokemon dollars. Next, you need to find or make the TMS you need for the desired mover. Finally, you need to give it an item with the PlayStyle gel. All in all, this can take several hours and you need to do it at least five more times to build a highly competitive team. I did something about it a few weeks ago Why I have 500 hours in Pokemon Violet. This is why.

Enter Pokemon Championship. based on Official websiteChampions aims to keep the strategic depth of the mainline series while making it easier to train and change Pokemon statistics. Once Pokemon has been recruited (or one transferred from Pokemon’s home), you can use the training feature to manually adjust statistics like attacks and defenses, change their nature (or statistics displayed on the website), and exchange movement and capabilities. All of these actions cost victory points, which can be done through combat and cannot Been purchased. As of this writing, we don’t know how many VPs you will receive and what the economic performance in the game will look like. Anyway, the entire training process looks much more streamlined – even if it still involves some math.

In addition to the basic statistics of Pokemon, there are some so-called effort values. Buried in the summary page of Pokemon, you can technically track Pokemon's electric car, but it won't give you the actual numerical value, making it useless. Every four effort values obtained through a battle or a specific item (such as vitamins or feathers) are equal to a statistical point. Any Pokemon can have up to 510 evs of no more than 252 in one statistics. If you break the calculator, you will quickly realize that mathematics is not mathematics. If you do evenly split EVs on two statistics, you'll have six electric cars left, and since four EVs equal one statistical point, two of them have no effect. If these numbers make your head rotate, google the corruption calculation formula – it's crazy.

At least on the surface, the Pokemon Champion cancels the effort value and lets you allocate 66 stat points (up to 32 per stat), as you can see. This means that if you invest entirely in special attacks and speeds, you will have two statistics points left instead of one. This may seem trivial, but an extra stat point might be the difference between knockout and extra turn.

I realize I'm in trouble here, but for decades these hidden statistics and blunt mechanical competitive Pokemon have been overshadowed by competitive Pokemon. As a longtime fan, this is frustrating because the competitive aspect is the most exciting part, but the barriers to entry are always thick. If the champion manages to capture casual audiences and let them interact with Pokemon’s deeper struggle mechanics, it could inspire millions of Pokemon fans to move towards competitive scenarios.

If that's not motivating enough, think about things from a financial standpoint. In order to compete in the Pokemon Battle, you need to have a Nintendo Switch and a Pokemon Scarlet or a Violet. If you want to keep up with metadata, you may need two versions to cover the version's proprietary Pokemon. However, Pokemon Championships is a free playback app, namely Mobile and Nintendo Switch. Meaning, you don't even need to have a Nintendo console or Pokemon game to play.

However, there are still many problems. The recent trailer shows how to reassign statistics points, but what about personal values? These are inherent statistics for the captured or hatched pokemon. They can be maximized, but doing so can require a lot of resources. An easy solution is to set the IV of each Pokemon in the championship to 31 (maximum). However, this will limit the Trick Room strategy, a technology that allows coaches to make their slowest Pokemon do the first. Naturally, many teams in the Skill Room revolve around Pokemons using Zero Speed IV, meaning that if two tofals appear on the field, a torkoals with Zero Speed IV will move first under the Skill Room. Without IV, every Tofal with zero speed investment results in a speed tie, which gives the coin flip attack priority.

Additionally, we have not seen any official information around holding items. Like abilities and statistics, holding items can dramatically change the role of Pokemon. The dragon formation with the Choice Band is harder to hit than the standard Dragon House, but the Choice Band locks it in every move. Additionally, a person with a silk scarf can improve the normal type of action, making extreme speeds more deadly and not locking Dragonite in one attack.

What about custom mechanics such as Z-Moves and Dynamax? Will these be represented? Terastalization and large evolution exist – given that this is the meaning of scarlet, violet and legend: ZA is in surround – but can players use Z-Moves? How will it handle the new Pokemon generations? Can every Pokemon be used in the championship? I have a lot of questions, but in order for this to be the best way to experience Pokemon Wars, it needs to be equal to the current generation. As the next generation declines, Pokemon champions need to reflect those new competitive definition mechanics as soon as possible with players intending to remain competitive.

Then there is the monetization of a free game, which is imminent. If Pokemon Champion is free, what does monetization look like? This Pokemon company has confirmed that you will not be able to buy victory points with real money. While this may mean you can't train or recruit Pokemon with a credit card, the company will certainly implement it Some A means of bringing cash. Hopefully this is limited to cosmetics.

So, Pokemon Worlds (official annual championship game) is suitable for all of this? First, once the championship enters the official game, it can explode. It has grown steadily thanks to streamlined mechanics and big names like Wolfe Glick, but it accounts for only a small part of the player base. As of 2025, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet have sold more than 27 million units. Obviously, not everyone is in a Pokemon game for a fight, but breaking the barrier to entry can inspire potential audiences to enter competitiveness.

Pokemon often laughs at older fans also Simple. I can't argue about this. This story is designed for players of all ages after all. However, there is a great depth of competition that people often overlook. years agoPokemon is much more complicated than you know.” In it, he compares it to chess and breaks down how all the mechanics and the intense mental game interact in order to create one of the deepest combat systems of all time. The depth and difficulty is there, and always has been for folks willing to push through the barriers, but I can't blow people for writing it off. Selfishly, as a longtime Pokemon fan, I just hope Pokemon Championships will be enough to finally convince more of my friends to give competitive Pokemon a shot.